BUNDLE Learning About Systemic Racism and White Fragility

Perhaps you are considering teaching Robin DiAngelo's White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism but aren't sure how you would build a unit. Let the resources in this bundle help you get started. In teaching White Fragility to nine sections of 11th and 12th graders over two years, I developed and fine-tuned these materials. Each resource is designed to be used in a hybrid, remote, or traditional classroom. All materials are ready to share with students.

This unit is designed to engage students with the dimensions of systemic racism Robin DiAngelo explains in White Fragility. You can mix and match the various activities according to your students’ interests and your available time.

The 45-page bundle consists of:

1. Two suggested unit plans—a 12-day plan and a 9-day plan--with each day's classwork and homework spelled out for students. The plans include links to videos and supplemental readings that can be used at critical junctures in your unit.

2. A guide for organizing a student-led, seminar-style discussion of each chapter of White Fragility. This guide includes a Google Doc, ready to share with students, with 40 discussion prompts and a table for organizing who will speak and when. Learning objectives and goals for this three-day activity are included.

3. Fifty multiple-choice questions, arranged sequentially by chapter, that can be used as a test, as quizzes over sections, as questions to frame further discussion, or as a group review guide of White Fragility. The key is included.

4. An essay prompt inviting students to write about how systemic racism shows up in their own lives. This resource includes five annotated sample papers to help the students see the variety of potential responses and to help the teacher establish expectations for making and developing claims in an essay. A page of supplemental videos and short pieces related to systemic racism is included. I put this free resources in the bundle for your ease in downloading and keeping all materials together. Learning objectives and goals included.

5. A project in which students choose a concept and make a short informational video to share with others in a class film festival. A sample video made by two 11th graders is included. The class film festival proved to be a good way for students to take ideas from the book into our school community. Many students shared their videos in other settings, too--with friends, on social media, at club meetings, and in portfolios of their work.